Trying to sort it all out in my head! (SPOILERS)
OK, just trying to get a grip on the time loop. I'm going to put it down as I understand it, but there is something that is bugging me:
SPOILERS
1886
Webb has the machine, the one that is not quite right (which will eventually become the Soul Exchanger). I'll call it Machine 1. He accidentally sends it to 1968. A machine comes back, the repaired one, that eventually becomes the Unlimited Energy Machine. We'll call it Machine 2. He uses it to jump to 1968.
1968
Spring (which I'll call him from here on in, either Edgar or Patrick) arrives in 1968. Machine 2 is still there with him in his basement. Rainey has Machine 1, and refuses to give it up. So at this point, Machines 1 and 2 both exist at the same point (1968).
2001
After years of war with Rainey, the birth of Lydia and the murder of his wife, Spring jumps to 2015. At this point, Machines 1 and 2 still both exist in 2001.
2015
Dirk and Todd have found Machine 2. Spring arrives, witnesses his own death, and uses Machine 2 to jump back to 2001. In 2001 he disassembles Machine 2, buries the pieces, and sets up things so that Dirk and Todd will find it. In the confrontation with Rimmer, Machine 1 is destroyed, and they send Machine 2 back to 1886. So at this point, neither Machine 1 nor Machine 2 is in 2015, closing the loop.
Now, here is my question:
After Dirk, Todd and Patrick Spring witness what happens in the hotel penthouse, as they converse on the dock, Patrick Spring wonders how Dirk and Todd have the machine, since he had disassembled it and buried the pieces. But how could this Patrick Spring (who had just used the machine to jump to 2001) know that he will have disassembled it and hidden it? When he last saw it in 2001, it was in one piece (and needed to be, for him to make the time jump). This version of Patrick Spring has not yet disassembled it; I assume he won't until he gets back. So how does he know?
My guess, that occurs to me even as I'm typing this post, is that he PLANS to do so when he gets back, so he takes it as having been done; Dirk revealing that Spring had left them the maps and they had found the pieces gives him a roadmap to what to do. But still, the conversation starts with Spring knowing the machine has been disassembled, before Dirk tells him the rest.
Have I missed something? Does someone have a different handle on it?
4 8 15 16 23 42
--------------------------
For Nate.